What do John Waters and Fiona Apple have in common? The film Christmas Evil. I’ll explain as we go along. Christmas Evil tells the story of Harry who, as a little boy, accidentally witnesses Santa (a.k.a. Harry’s father) trimming mommy’s tree (a.k.a. “giving a carrot to Rudolph” and “giving Mommy the Yuletide log”). Actually, it’s a bit more innocent than that, but I figured, when am I gonna get the chance to use those phrases in a review again?

That moment when Harry just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time apparently sets the stage for mental illness. Flash forward to 30 years later when Harry is asked by someone at the toy factory where he works (naturally) to pull a double shift for him so he can leave on vacation early. Harry reluctantly agrees and then, after the shift ends, just happens to be walking by the exact bar where his coworker just happens to be bragging about how he stuck that shmuck Harry with his shift. Talk about your perfect timing!

That does it: Harry snaps and becomes a homicidal Santa. Actually, not quite; that would have been mildly entertaining, but instead we have to watch this happen s.l.o.w.l.y. over the next hour before any blood is shed. It’s sort of like a psychological thriller, only without the thriller part.

Harry is played by Brandon Maggart, father of Fiona Apple. He’s fun to watch when Harry slips on the Santa suit, but otherwise is pretty dull. The writer has done his research, and it is a bit interesting to watch Harry slowly become bolder both in his crimes and his Santa persona, but that’s not nearly enough to save this film from being overlong and completely mundane.

The problem is that there is no hero. It’s as if we were watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre from the viewpoint of Leatherface, and learned nothing about his victims...only not that exciting. There is no progression of character here, no growth. When Harry gets stuck in a chimney, it is neither tense nor humorous, because we don’t care about his fate. It’s obvious from the music and the way the scene is shot that the film wants us to feel nervous for Harry, hoping that he’ll get out before he’s caught, but that’s just weird because we know he’s on his way down that chimney to kill someone.

And speaking of music, Christmas Evil has one of the most obnoxious synthesizer scores this side of Troma films, and way too many scenes with Harry humming Christmas carols. Let’s just say his daughter didn’t get her talent from him.

Christmas Evil is purportedly director John Waters’ favorite holiday film. His quote on the box reads: “The best seasonal film of all time...True cinematic masterpiece.” Too bad it’s not any good.

Pros: None.
Cons: The first 95 minutes feel like 4 hours.
Review Rating: 1 out of 10 out-of-tune Christmas carols being hummed by Fiona’s dad...if you’re lucky..

Poor Harry. He's a kid who loves Christmas, and refuses to disbelieve in Santa. One year, however, he sneaks down the stairs to have a peek, and is scarred for life by seeing Mommy, er, kissing Santa Claus. Years later, Harry is man who just wants to be Santa, still profoundly warped by his early experience. He works as a floor manager in a toy factory (having risen from the ranks of the worker elves - er, bees), keeps his house perpetually decorated for Christmas, sleeps in Santa PJs, creepily keeps tabs on all the neighborhood children and marks them down in his book as naughty or nice, and gears himself up each year to distribute Christmas cheer through his industrial wasteland of a home town. But this year is different - the dishonesty, commercialism and cynicism he encounters finally cause him to snap, and then, well, you better watch out! Harry in his Santa suit goes through town, bringing toys to the nice and slashing up the naughty.

I've seen this called the best Christmas horror movie ever, and I personally agree. Not because it's the most blackly comic (that goes to Gremlins) or the most gory (Black Christmas and the Silent Night, Deadly Night series are gorier). My vote goes to You Better Watch Out (alternate title) because the psychological dynamic of this film is just so messed up, and so perfectly captures so many of the weird undercurrents and contradictions of the holiday, that it actually really seems to say something about, well, Christmas.

In a lot of superficial ways this looks like a lot of '80s slashers (except there's a relative lack of gore, or nubile slashees) - fairly low budget, bland electronic music (peversely mixed with Christmas standards), broadly stereotyped supporting characters. However, on closer inspection, the whole thing started to remind me more of A Christmas Story than a typical '80s slash fest. The stylized acting by Brandon Maggart as Harry at first appears to be stilted B-movie fare, but as the movie develops you realize it's really a brilliant representation of this guy totally coming apart. Jeffery DeMunn is outstanding as Harry's more successful, and sort of dickheaded but nevertheless sincerely concerned, brother, and there are other good performances by various slimeball execs, resentful union guys, drunken revelers and snotty kids. It's clearly got a limited budget (though it is clearly carefully put together and actually looks pretty good), but given the disintegrating feel of the community it takes place in, that actually works pretty well.

(A totally off-horror aside, watching this movie reminded me viscerally of how just badly the late '70s and early '80s sucked - young'uns out there shouldn't believe the revisionist fashion ads for a second. Everything just seemed kind of crappy, and run down, and depressed (economically and otherwise), and there was just this general acceptance that everything was going to hell in a handbasket, and that perpetual seething social resentment damped down by stagnant suckitude was all we had to look forward to. It's really hard to appreciate, in retrospect at nearly 30 years distance, how dead-ended things seemed, even if you lived through it. Well, this film brought it all back - there was a lot that seemed really familiar. In fact, there are probably a dozen or more near-dead small industrial cities in upstate NY alone that still look just like this.)

Anyhow, as psychological horror, You Better Watch Out is actually pretty effective. (With very few exceptions, such as Peeping Tom, Freudian interpretations of horror movies just piss me off as the wankery of the uselessly overeducated, but it actually works here.) I mean, Harry is BONKERS, and in a most worrisome way: he is most dangerous when he's trying to do good. He doesn't kill because he's evil or wants to, but because his best intentions are just going horribly wrong. He's not a villain, he's tragic, and he seems harmless, until ... he's suddenly not. And, for fear factor, you can slash up all the campers you want and it won't be anywhere near as frightening as watching Harry spying on the neighborhood children and taking detailed notes on their naughty and nice behavior.

So there's not much gore, but there is one hell of an ending. I won't spoil it, but ... it's pretty astonishing. You will probably laugh your head off at first, but it is, in retrospect, a perfect ending to the film.

7 out of 10